May 23, 2016

This excellent article by Mary Couzin first ran n 2010. If you read it the first time enjoy it again. If not, you are in for a treat.

Two years ago at our Toy and Game Inventor/Industry Conference, Mike Hirtle, Head of Global Acquisition and Inventor Relations at Hasbro opened the Conference with an outstanding presentation. Although I consider myself knowledgeable, even passionate, about our inventing community, I didn’t know that almost every major toy and game hit was invented by an outside inventor.

I asked Mike to reprise here what he said that day.

“In order to select the outside concepts that make it to the store shelves, Hasbro considers over 3000 submissions a year from the professional inventor community.

As far as I know, the toy and game business is the only one that is supported by such a network of inventors who make their living by creating the playthings of the future. My guess is there are between 400 and 500 designers around the world who make up this group. Over the past fifty years, a very large share of the product innovation in toys and games has been produced outside of the companies that brought it to market.

It all started in the late forties. While there had been numerous isolated licensing deals before that, there had never been any attempt to produce concepts continuously on a large scale and to subsist on the subsequent royalties. Two clever young men in Chicago, Marvin Glass and Eddy Goldfarb took note of some interesting dynamics that were changing our industry in post-war America.

Low cost injection molded plastics were becoming available, and Asian sources of manufacturing, starting with Japan, were making toys a lot more affordable. At the same time, nationwide marketing of products was beginning to flourish and when television advertising grew, the whole business took off.

Glass and Goldfarb recognized that there would be a great thirst for new toys and games and they invented the invention business. The Marvin Glass and Associates studio created hundreds of products, many of which are still on the market: Simon, Operation, Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots, Lite Brite, Toss Across and Inch Worm to name just a few.

August 18, 2015

John Spinello only made $500 from selling his patent to the classic game Operation in 1964. Fifty years later, he found himself in the position of needing an operation of his own that he couldn’t afford. Last fall, Tim Walsh and Peggy Brown launched a Crowdrise Campaign to help John get that operation. Over 1,200 people pitched in and raised $32,422 for John and the campaign went viral. John’s story was picked up on Good Morning America, Inside Edition, NBC Nightly News, Jimmy Kimmel Live and over 100 other media outlets.

But the story didn't end there. There is a twist! So, here I interview Peggy and Tim about the story and they ask that you help them tell the even BIGGER story!

How crazy was it when your campaign for John went viral?

Tim: Peggy and I were on severe overtime for two weeks straight. We had over 1,200 donations come in to John, each of which generated an email to us. We took the time to send thankyous back to each person. That was important to us. We set up a website for people to write to John and received over 500 more letters there. Just managing the campaign was a challenge. Then there was the media crush.

Peggy: John and his wife, Madeline are such sweet people, when it started to get crazy we felt we had to organize and filter the media requests for them. Some of the media got really pushy and we didn’t want John subject to that. Basically we turned into agents and media managers for him. He had camera crews in his house for 2 solid weeks!

August 6, 2015

Tanya Thomspon of Mastermind Toys (then ThinkFun) introduced me to Elan at The Gathering for Gardner in March 2014. At the time, Elan was Chief Design Officer for Xbox Entertainment Studios and had quite an impressive list of accomplishments. Since that time, he co-created the Exploding Kittens card game with a goal to raise $10,000 to print 500 decks of cards, which was surpassed in 8 minutes, and it now tops the list for the most-funded game ever on Kickstarter. A phenomenal story!

Elan will be a keynote speaker at our Toy & Game Inventor Conferences and attending all our events this November. We’re looking forward to hearing his stories and advice firsthand. Tanya interviewed Elan for our newsletter and I'm sharing their interview here - it is a great read!

Tanya: Congratulations on the success of Exploding Kittens! I am a backer! For those who haven’t heard about it, it is the work of yourself and another game designer Shane Small, along with artist Matthew Inman of The Oatmeal. It's a card game for two to five players that has become the most successful gaming Kickstarter of all time, raising $8,782,571 from 219,382 backers. Tell me how it all started?

May 15, 2014

Most of you have probably not heard of Loot Crate since it is a geek based product/service. But it is another example of new and different ways to promote our industry like the Spiel Des Jahre Award, toy/game inventors and entrepreneurs (GoldieBlox's success was built on Debbie Sterling's story and PlaSmart was smart to use kid-wonder Nick Metzler in promotion of Squashed - everyone loves a story) and fashion (the Moshi Monster PlayCHIC look made it into Italian Vogue, British Fashion Week and next to Michael Acton Smith on the front page of the NY Int'l Times and more).

ICv2 reported this morning, "It seems to be a concept that’s caught on; it’s already generating revenue at an $18 million annual rate (not including the shipping and handling charges). And manufacturers and publishers looking for a way to connect with a geek audience are seeing Crates as a way to get samples of their products in the hands of 100,000 committed geeks, which can undoubtedly help with pricing."

Maybe some of you might be interested in Loot Crate or maybe someone might start a similar service for another segment. The U.S. Postal Service could use the additional business and promoting play to more people makes people and our industry healther and happier.

May 6, 2014

Since my start in the toy industry was as a board game designer, I'm asked about them and have written about them often. There are many who think board games are disappearing, but as I have been writing in this space for years – they aren’t disappearing. There is resurgence; it is hard to track because they aren’t being sold in the same ways.

More people are playing games - of all types - than ever before in history. A great analogy is food. New culinary sensations have been introduced to our diets, but we still eat many of the basic items we always have, we just have a richer and more varied diet. The varied diet in this analogy includes high tech and low tech games. Sometimes you feel like a snack (app), sometimes party (party game of any kind) and sometimes a sit down dinner with your friends and/or family (a board game). It is all good!

Two articles popped up today in support. Below are interesting outtakes:

“While the video game business long ago eclipsed its low-tech cousin, sales of tabletop games have continued to grow. Sales at hobby stores in the United States rose 15 to 20 percent in each of the last three years, according to ICv2, a trade publication that tracks the business. Amazon says board game sales increased by a double-digit percentage from 2012 to 2013.”

“Somewhat ironically, perhaps, video game players are often among the biggest devotees of tabletop games. Some in the business believe that is no accident, theorizing that the abundance of opportunities to connect electronically with people through games and social media has also created a hunger — sated by tabletop games — for face-to-face contact.”

“Last year there was actually more money pledged to board games than video games,” added Strickler (CEO and Co-Founder of Kickstarter). “It’s like $55 million in board games. It’s kind of counterintuitive to the way that we think the world is moving but I think the board game market on Kickstarter is very illustrative of what it is that we actually do.”

“Strickler pointed to board games as one of the community-driven enthusiast areas that the platform has been able to support — noting that as of this week Kickstarter will pass $100 million having been cumulatively pledged to board games.”

April 29, 2014

Our industry can be bigger – much bigger. We can learn from other entertainment industries we are competing with and from our own industry about what works.

After attending a consumer game fair in Essen, Germany attracting over 150,000 mainstream consumers – lots of families, we founded our Chicago Toy & Game Fair to promote play through media, bloggers, fashion, inventors, educators and consumers the weekend before Thanksgiving. We added toys, young inventor challenges, educator and inventor conferences, fashion show, character breakfasts/lunches, stage events, blogger breakfasts, inventor awards and other events that Essen does not have (or needs to have). We’ve become the SXSW of Play.

The Spiel des Jahres is another amazing event/award that comes from Germany. It is an award that can sell more than 500,000 additional games. A nomination alone can mean an additional 10,000 copies sold. Mainstream media reports on the winners the following day. I don’t know of an award in the States for toys or games that compares. There is something here we can learn. The Chairman of the SdJ Jury, Tom Felber, is in the States now. We have been introducing Tom around the country – LA and SF last week, Chicago and New York this week and in cities in Canada in July/August. If you want to find out a bit more about Tom and the SdJ, we have an interview, but even better, come out and meet him.

February 14, 2014

Originally I titled this piece “Eating My Way Through Nuremberg Toy Fair”, but it is much more than just about the wonderful food. We’ve all attended many trade shows and there are none in our industry that compare with the Nuremberg Toy Fair’s hospitable exhibitors. At times it feels and tastes like a epicurean food fair. While sipping espresso and savoring fresh parmesan and chocolate from Italy in the Modiano stand, Isabel Serpa from Modiano explained it this way, “This is a public relations fair where you can find partners. People will tell others about you and the business will come later.” For the record, I have not done business with Modiano and wasn’t talking to them about business. Within 15 minutes of chatting with Isabel, I wished I lived closer to her as I could see sharing a cup of espresso with her on a daily basis. And, I did give her card to someone later that day.

Designer Carlos Bonnet of X-Swing Europe said, “Over here we first build on our relationships with the potential buyer and much later we will actual do the business. In the Netherlands it’s called “de kat uit de boom kijken” which means in English: “To see which way the wind blows” (or something like that). If the mindset, from the potential buyer, is good and you as a person is very likeable then it’s all good and you can do business with each other.”

For those of you who do not attend the Nuremberg Fair, I thought I might share some of the tastier bits of hospitality. All the booths I visited were welcoming and all offered something to eat and/or drink, but there are standouts. One of my favorites every year is the Ravensburger booth with many selections to choose in an area that is the size of a small café. Although everything looks delicious, their Schokokuss, a chocolate-coated marshmallow treat, is something I could become diabetic over in a short period of time if they were available in the Chicago area. Please don’t tell me if they are. This treat has a very interesting history and many countries claim to have invented it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate-coated_marshmallow_treats Yes, that’s me in the pictures eating my second one with Frank Mueller, Ravensburger’s Innovation Manager. A few days later Tanya Thompson from ThinkFun and Pal Keller from Mindtwister joined me at the Ravensburger booth. Yes, competitors are treated royally as well! (Picture of Tanya and Pal at end of article.)

October 15, 2013

On
Pinterest, fashion dolls aside, when you type the word ‘fashion’ with any
toy/game brand, Lego turns
up countless images. Various images of Fergie and Jet
Black wearing Lego assembles are plentiful as are Lego hats, shoes, suits,
heels, dresses, purses, jackets, skirts… everything! The second brand with a
plethora of images is Hello Kitty.

Is
it by chance that these are a couple of the hottest brands in our industry? I
think not. Fashion sells. Tide detergent is using fashion via Project Runway to
sell laundry soap. Duct Tape was a theme of Project Runway. The Duct Tape marketing
people told me that using fashion very successfully sells their brand. My collaborators/partners
and I have been working to find avenues to get a bigger piece of the
entertainment pie for our industry, to promote the importance of play and sell
more toys and games. We’ve been doing it through inventors (TAGIE Awards),
through educators (Games for Educators) and to the public/media directly
(Chicago Toy & Game Fair). Why not fashion? Last year was our first year, we came up with
the idea just months before and it was a runway success. The fashion industry
embraced it. The media loved it. The public ate it up. PlayCHIC, the toy inspired fashion show.

October 10, 2013

We
all attempt to keep up on toy/game industry news and are lucky to have many resources
to do so. Below is a list of internet industry news resources. They are in no
particular order, most are free and some have paper equivalents. Please feel
free to add to the list (post a comment). My sincere apologies if I forgot
anyone and let me know if I should list you differently. I’m a bit distracted
these days with our November ChiTAG events just over a month away (always want
to be on the good side of media and thank them for the service they provide us).
A big thank you to Richard Gottlieb for providing Global Toy News as a place to
post such a list!

I’m
working on lists for linkedin, facebook, twitter, pinterest and more. Let me
know if you have a resource and I will include you.

August 5, 2013

Quirky’s homepage states: For centuries, becoming an
“inventor” has been a hard gig to crack.
Complexities relating to financing,
engineering, distribution, and legalities have stood in the way of brilliant
people executing on their great ideas. Since launching in 2009, Quirky has
rapidly changed the way the world thinks about product development. It is crowd
sourced invention. The process is described here http://www.quirky.com/how-it-works. What is also interesting is that Quirky puts a picture of the inventor and their story on every product. Stories sell.

As one who is a part of the inventor community, this is
intriguing. I’ve been watching them grow and have toy/game industry colleagues
that have had success at Quirky as well as loved the process and working with
them. Their founder, Ben Kaufman, has already been on the Late Night Show with Jay Leno three times. On my recent trip to New York City, I met with Andrew Erlick, Quirky
Invention Ambassador, who took me through their awesome offices in Chelsea
Piers. I asked him if he would share with us Quirky’s roots,
philosophy and goals and he agreed.

Andrew: “As an
Invention Ambassador (IA), I act as liaison between the inventors and Quirky's
in-house teams. IA's are assigned to new inventors and communicate with them
throughout the entire Quirky process from ideation to prototype, engineering to
retail. I am the voice of the inventor within Quirky, ensuring that their ideas
and concerns are heard and at times, anxieties quelled.

Throughout the
entire invention process, I provide constant feedback to the inventors and
ensure that they
feel confident that their idea is evolving through the process
in the most efficient manner. Often times, inventor's ideas change in the
design phases and its the job of the IA to explain and convince the inventor
why a departure from the inventor's original concept is the best collective
decision. Being a good IA means knowing when to be understanding and sensitive
as well as when to be persuasive and firm. The relationship between an IA and
inventor is very personal while the relationship between an IA and the Quirky
team is very pragmatic and businesslike. Managing this balance throughout the
process is always challenging and often exciting.

July 4, 2013

One beautiful morning last week, Marty Abrams and I met
for coffee at an outdoor café in New York. I
couldn’t help but feel lucky…
lucky to so enjoy what I do, lucky to get to meet such endlessly fascinating
people, lucky to be a part of the toy industry.
It occurred to me then that the amazing stories of the legends in our
industry must be told.

I shared this thought with Marty, and said that I’d love
to write about him. He agreed to be interviewed for this article series, and as
he was talking, a woman that neither of us knew who was sitting within earshot,
walked up and profusely thanked him for providing joy and play to so many over
the years. He was surprised and humbled by this, but it was made obvious to me
once again that interest obviously (and rightfully) spills over into the
public. People are genuinely wowed by the creativity that our industry
routinely demonstrates. It moves them. It profoundly affects them from the time
they’re kids onward.

Marty has lived and breathed the toy business for over 40
years. He started out in his family’s company,
Mego, and has consistently made
mega-hits with popular lines such as Magna Doodle, SkyDancers, Micronauts and early Nintendo launched in the U.S. There are
now over 750,000 websites mentioning products by Mego, and its action figures
are highly prized collectibles worth thousands of dollars. Mego Corporation manufactured the first comprehensive line of
DC and Marvel characters, and there is even - believe it or not - a Mego
Museum.

Marty has been called the Father of Action Figures and a true pioneer
of licensed products, once having his story and product gracing the cover of NY
Times Magazine. He has also been featured in People Magazine, and there are no
less than three books written about him. Now the head of I-Star Entertainment,
he’s still filling mass market shelves around the globe.

To say Marty Abrams is
an interesting person, is a ridiculous understatement.

May 13, 2013

A couple of years ago, I spoke with Brenda Brathwaite Romero
about her series of 6 board games titled
‘The Mechanic is the Message’ that make one ponder their themes/topics and change how you think about these topics. Among many things, Brenda is a TEDx2011 speaker (her talk is about these games and is incredible) and a celebrity in the video game world.

The titles/themes include:

-Train Board Game, about the Holocaust

-The New World, a game about slavery

-Síochán leat
(Gaelic for Peace Be With You), or The Irish Game about Oliver Cromwell’s
invasion of Ireland

-Mexican Kitchen, about illegal immigration, still
in prototyping

-Cité Soleil, about day and night violence in a densely
populated shanty town in Port-au-Prince in Haiti, in progress

-One Falls for Each of Us, about the Trail of Tears, in
progress

Art, experience, entertainment, controversy – whatever you
want to label it, they are brilliant and inspired. I
was going to write about
Brenda and her games, but she recently gave a talk and there is an article
about that talk says it better than I could have. The following are just a few
excerpts to hopefully interest you to link over to the original article – a very
interesting read.

“Train accomplishes something that few other board games can
do: It makes you think about an emotionally difficult subject.”

“A board game might seem like one of the last places you’d
find innovation. In fact, board games are going through a revival now, in part
because of the popularity of crowdfunding on Kickstarter, and because they are
now an increasingly popular inspiration for their digital cousins, video games.
The game is part of a growing tradition of Games for Change, which are as much
about social causes as fun.”

“Word about the series is getting around. A film crew is
prepping a documentary about Train. Other publications have written about it.”

April 10, 2013

We host popular industry get-togethers at NYTF and ASTRA
as well as monthly events in Chicago spring
through fall. Now we’ve added
ChiTAG-Los Angeles on April 16th in Santa Monica and ChiTAG-San Francisco in Berkeley on April 18th – next week!
The CA events are casual, you pay for your own food/beverage, no cover charge
(we can thank our wonderful sponsors for this*) and you are welcome anytime
throughout the evening. If you’ll be in California, please join us. The
invitation is at (please don’t forget to rsvp, counts are important to the
venue for staffing). http://www.tandgcon.com/_tagieconf/chitag-california

The response has been incredible and we’ve had requests
to host them in other cities. Presently we are working on venues and dates for Seattle,
Nashville (ASTRA), NYC, Toronto (with Tanya Thompson of ThinkFun), London (with
Betsy Fore of Mind Candy) and possibly other locations.

We hope to see you at one of our get-togethers! It is a fantastic
opportunity to meet others in our industry in a casual low pressure setting.

March 26, 2013

This
Saturday is TableTop Day. (I’ll never get people to associate me with
toys if I keep writing about games, but this one is a game changer.) Have you
heard of Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day and their hit TV Series, TableTop? Wil and
his friends sit around and play board games. Guest stars are celebrities and next
season includes Jeri Ryan, Seth Green, Bobak Ferdosi, Ashley Clements, Patrick
Rothfuss, and Wheaton’s son Ryan Wheaton.

Wil
Wheaton is single handedly doing more to get people to play board games than
anyone on the planet & I love the way he thinks: "I think any game can
be a gateway game, just because you put the right game in front of the right
person, and they’re going to go crazy. … You’ve just got to figure out what
kinds of games people like to play."

He
is so popular that despite it being a new show, his playing a game can cause it
to sell 30,000 units of the game the following week. The show is so popular NBC
is creating their hour long series version with Glee co-star Jane Lynch as host
of NBC’s Hollywood Game Night, produced by Sean Hayes and Todd Milliner that
features A-list celebrities hanging out and playing games with non-celebrity
contestants in a cocktail party atmosphere. The series is based on Hayes’
real-life game nights.

NPD
reports that board game sales are down, but I don’t believe they are tracking
the type of board games
that many people, like Wil, are playing today - the games
that were once labeled hobby (sometimes called eurostyle or designer games).
Look at the top 10 games on Amazon. It is a mix of types that you didn’t once see in the mass.

I
should mention that these eurostyle/hobby game inventors are treated as
celebrities in their market (now
making their way to the mass market). Their
names are on the box, people stand in line for autographs and the chance to
play with the inventor/designer, consumers buy their games like they do books
from favorite authors. There is a connection to increased sales and I talk
about this in many past articles, including most recently Lessons from the
Housewares Show.

The
market has changed. The older more familiar style of family games are still
selling, look at Spin Master’s ‘overnight’ success in that area or Lego’s
games, but now there are options and people are enjoying the options. More
people are playing games of every type on every platform than at any time in
history. I recently wrote an article on
the benefits of board games and it is being shared almost virally. People are
interested in board games – all types of them! I suggest people think of
games like they do food. Sometimes you feel like a snack (an app), sometime
like fast food (quick fun game) and sometimes like that family/friends sit-down
meal (eurostyle).

We need the face-to-face interaction with our diverse populations. I applaud Wil and his efforts. When
asked why he made up the show and why Int’l TableTop Day, Wil said, “…to just give an opportunity to people to go
somewhere and experience the boundless joy of getting together with other
people and just hanging out and playing a game together.” And, now there are options - lots of options to play!

March 7, 2013

Earlier
this week I attended the International Home and Housewares Show, the huge
annual trade show of
the kitchen gadget, tableware, small appliance and
cookware industries. I was curious to see the show since it had been many years
since I had last attended. It had definitely grown to over 2,100 exhibitors and
over 60,000 attendees from over 100 countries. But I was most struck by how
many celebrity chefs had their faces blown up much larger than life on booth
graphics and the electric vibe around the celebrity chef stage area where they cooked
for attendees and press cameras. This was a change from the last time I
attended, when most chefs were virtually
unknown.

Attendees
talked enthusiastically about the chefs they got to meet, and watched eagerly as the chefs demonstrated
their latest techniques and licensed products. A Movie Star excitement rippled
through the

crowd. This excitement added
a real buzz to the show – a trade
show. We experience much the same excitement at our Chicago Toy & Game Fair
with many of the consumers excited to meet the inventors of toys and games. But
this was a trade show.

Then
flipping through one of the Housewares Show dailies, there were article titles
such as “Gorham Launches Rick Bayliss Collection” and “Meyer Corporation Showcases
New Cake Boss Brand.” Another turn of the page had Guy Fieri’s life-size
picture smiling at me.

Decades
ago, housewares were a commodity much like toys and games are now. Making chefs
into household names and bigger-than-life characters changed all that. Now
there’s the sparkly and appealing celebrity factor that makes the products more
special, more entertaining, and easier for
consumers to connect with on an emotional level. This is what our industry
needs to do to stand out in today’s world. When it comes down to it, we are
competing for the very same dollars housewares are. We spend money on gadgets
we don’t need and hardly use, and those egg beaters and microplanes certainly
aren’t as important as play is to individuals’ and society’s health and
wellbeing. We are in the entertainment industry and we have IMPORTANT products
that are VITAL to families and the community at large.

September 22, 2012

An
independent 2006 U.S. Workplace Survey reported 65% of workers asked said design
and layout of
their workplace is “extremely” or “very” important to them and
more than 90% said the quality of their working environment affects their
attitude about their work. They published Ten Tips: Creative space at the
office. The NY Times article Do Happier People Work Harder? states, "Gallup estimates the cost of America’s disengagement crisis at a staggering $300 billion in lost productivity annually. When people don’t care about their jobs or their employers, they don’t show up consistently, they produce less, or their work quality suffers." Employers and employees spend most of their waking hours at work, it should be in spaces that lift one's spirit, not drag down.

Bob
Wann, President of Patch Products, said that his first move as President was to
have the offices
redecorated in a more playful way to reflect what they did as
a company. Radio Flyer has a giant wagon out front and fun wall murals inside.
Hasbro has Mr. Potato Head welcoming visitors and workers. Crayola has crayons tumbling from their rooftop. IDEO is known for
their creative work/play spaces.

I’ve
been collecting creative, cool and functional products and ideas for office
spaces and posting to
pinterest http://pinterest.com/marycouzin/creative-fun-office-ideas/.
What are some of your favorite playful creative company decors? Our industry of all industries should be known
for their playful and creative office spaces!

August 28, 2012

This year the International Toy and Game Innovators of
the Year Awards (TAGIE Awards) is being held at
Chicago’s Field Museum of
Natural History. The TAGIEs are a celebratory, emotional, playful and elegant
evening. Cocktails and appetizers will be in the balconies and exhibits
overlooking the stately Stanley Field Hall where the seated dinner and ceremony
will be held.

Honorees this year include:

Hassenfeld Humanitarian Award: Peter and Andrew Brown

Inventor Advocacy: Mel Taft

Lifetime Achievement: The Coster Family – Theo, Ora, Boaz and Gideon

Excellence in Character Creation – tba

In Memoriam - tba

In the upcoming weeks, we will be posting articles about
each of our incredible honorees this year.

Nominations for Toy Inventor of the Year, Game Inventor
of the Year, Rising Star and Young Inventor of the Year are open until
September
1st. Nominate your inventors today and join us November 16th
in Chicago!

June 28, 2012

The NY Times ran interesting story today titled: Google Tries Something Retro: Made in the U.S.A. The opening paragraph reads: Etched into the base of Google’s new wireless home media player that was introduced on Wednesday is its most intriguing feature. On the underside of the Nexus Q is a simple inscription: “Designed and Manufactured in the U.S.A.”

I’ve often wondered why if we have a label that states the product was manufactured in the U.S.A. or wherever, why not add where it was invented. It could be as Google has it labeled or you could have, as an example, “Designed in the U.S.A. and Manufactured in China.”

I also think it is important to have the name(s( of the inventor(s) of the box as a face or a story helps sell product, a topic I have written about many times.

Inventors themselves aside, isn’t it just as important where the idea was developed? People are employed designing just as they are manufacturing. Aren’t we proud of our innovative spirit? Perhaps the toy and game industry should lead the way and include such verbiage on our packaging.

May 8, 2012

Until recently, digital media and social media were viewed as mere marketing tools for toy manufacturers and retailers. American Smartphone adoption increased in 2011 to over 50% of cell phon subscribers. Facebook app Draw Something (OMGPOP/Zynga) logs 36,000,000 active monthly users and the Draw Something iPhone App launched to more than 50,000,000 downloads in 50 days. Words With Friends, Draw Something, Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Bejeweled, Doodle Jump and other digital brands provide new insights into the way kids, adults, and families play. But are digital, mobile and social trends changing the way we play?

In Chicago in November, we host our Social Media at Play Conference, SMAPCon, to learn the latest from the best minds. Brian Torney, SVP Creative & Interactive, at Kunoichi and Steve Drucker, VP /Executive Producer at Hasbro, were headliners at SMAPCon last fall and will now be expanding and sharing their thoughts at PlayCon next week along with Melanie Notkin, best-selling author, Founder of SavvyAuntie.com and CEO of the Webby Award nominee for Best Family Site. They are a dream team of information.

I am part of the TIA Committee putting on PlayCon, am introducing these digital mavens and asked them each to give us a sneak preview of what they plan to talk about at PlayCon. This is only one topic of a full agenda with important topics and top name speakers. I hope to see many of you at the Conference.

March 13, 2012

This week’s Time Magazine has an article about Beyonce and other celebrities promoting breast-feeding - that breast-feeding is more cool and hip if celebrities are doing it.

Beyonce also loves playing board games. Jay-Z said he went out and bought an armful of board games to keep her home when she was pregnant. Beyonce, Jay-Z and Kanye West play Connect 4 into the night and very competively.

There are a lot of other celebrities who play board games (didn’t find any celebrities who still play with toys). I have collected articles over the years and did an internet search for this blog – all easy to find and very public.

Promoting play as cool and hip is another strategy along with promoting our inventors as celebrities andthe importance of play to our wellbeing to better compete with other entertainment options.

February 28, 2012

Many of us enjoy and find inspiration in TED Talks. You may be surprised how many TED Talks are about the importance of play. Some are posted below. Also interesting is that few of the speakers are part of our industry.

We need to find ways to promote play as something good for you like eating vegetables. (Have you had your four to six servings of play today?) You’ve heard me say that toy/game inventors should be celebrated as authors, musicians, chefs, etc. Celebrating our inventors publicly is just one way to raise the profile of our industry and the importance of play.

Steve Keil and other TED speakers believe play can change the world for the better. It is documented that it can make you healthier, smarter, more productive, more social and happier (did you know most serial killers did not play as children – check out Stuart Brown’s TED talk).

Steve says we need a Play Revolution and that it can revitalize the economy, education and society. I’m with him. Watch his video below.

February 8, 2012

There, I’ve said it. I am addicted to Pinterest. Social media maven Mary Kay Russell led me here a few weeks ago. Although I didn’t want to add yet another social media addiction to my already full plate of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, I am now spending more time on Pinterest than the rest combined. In part, because it is new; but also because it is incredibly fun and useful on many levels. And the more time I spend on it, the more I can see why it could be hugely beneficial to the toy business – especially for retailers – from the big guys to the small brick & mortar stores.

So what is Pinterest? And why should toy retailers be interested in it? Pinterest is an online “social” site that lets users collect images they find online and offline – onto virtual bulletin boards that they can categorize and organize however they wish (i.e. home décor, recipes, party planning, TOYS I MUST BUY). Find something you want to buy? Or maybe a DIY project you want to try? How about a recipe you’d like to save? Grab the image and “pin” it onto one of your boards. The social part (this is where it gets addicting) comes into play when the user starts to window shop on Pinterest. Users can follow each other’s boards, and images can be shared or “repinned”, commented on, or “liked”. If a user wants to find out more about an item or make a purchase, they can click on the image and it’ll take them to the originating site.

I now have over 25 boards with over 1,000 images – and the list is growing. As you might have guessed, among my 25 boards are Toy and Game Inventors, Chicago Toy & Game Exhibitors,Kid Inventors and My Favorite Toy Stores. I no longer need to keep notes about places I want to go, recipes I want to try, decorating ideas, books I want to read, unusual wine corks, videos I like, etc. It’s all there for me when I want it, in an organized system that I understand and can access from anywhere, anytime.

January 22, 2012

Bald Barbie conversations are happening all over the Internet. Michelle Spelman suggested I write about it for GTN, but since has already written about it in her Cincinnati Examiner blog, I asked if she would like to share the story and how it has grown even since she wrote about it. If Michelle’s name is familiar, it is because I recently wrote about the Cincinnati’s Game & Toy Industry’s Holiday Gift Guide that she put together highlighting the products invented and produced by Cincy toy/game industry people.

Michelle: No doubt you’ve heard about the public campaign launched recently on Facebook trying to convince Mattel Inc. to make a “Beautiful and Bald Barbie” doll for children living with hair loss induced by cancer and other diseases. Forbes.com summarized the story beautifully earlier this week.

This is a classic example of why large and small companies must, not only, engage in social media, but also must have strategic social media contingency plans in place for navigating public image challenges that can arise.

What started as a simple page on Facebook, grew to a crusade, in a matter of days, that is now over 135 thousand “likes” strong. The effort has spilled over into all kinds of other social channels like Twitter, YouTube and blogs, and into the mainstream media as well. Huffington Post, ABC News, USA Today and others have covered this growing appeal.

The initial response from Mattel to the campaign’s organizers was a canned dismissal that legions of individuals have received over the years: ““Mattel doesn’t accept ideas from outside sources.”

The “Beautiful and Bald Barbie” group was not dissuaded, pushing on with their efforts to spread the word and gather support.

Paige Bailey is a senior creative manager and big ideas thinker at Kunoichi, a leading creative services provider in kids entertainment, toys, and games. With a background in writing and marketing, Paige seeks to build worlds behind every concept, and knock down all obstacles in between.

Paige: Normally, I’m not one to get excited about gaming console systems, but after playing the Xbox 360’s Kinect, it only took about .25 seconds to want one and about one day to make my purchase. After hours and hours of play (research), I’m ready to talk about how the Kinect has the potential to be a major stepping-stone in advancing the way we play, and how it’s opened up some virtual doors I never knew existed.

It seems I’m not the only one excited, as Microsoft’s release of the Kinect motion sensor for the Xbox 360 gaming console received strong initial commercial success, and continued to rise in sales above all other game systems in 2011. Securing a place in the Guinness Book of World Records as the fastest-selling consumer electronic device of all time, the popularity of the Kinect’s new technology seems to be exciting everyone.

January 12, 2012

Scott G. Eberle could be Dr. Play. He is vice president for play studies at The Strong where he develops exhibits for the National Museum of Play. He is editor of The Strong’s American Journal of Play, holds a doctorate in intellectual history, and is author of Classic Toys of the National Toy Hall of Fame and other works on American history, culture, and play. Currently he is co-editing a Handbook of Study of Play for Rowman-Littlefield and collaborating on a book about the elements of play. He writes the new blog titled re:Play, just launched this morning. Eberle also recently published “Playing with the Multiple Intelligences, How Play Helps Them Grow”. The latter is an important article, so I asked if he could highlight takeaway points for our industry. Play is a value in itself, of course, but it is also vital to learning, yet it gets trivialized. Scott’s research is ammunition to help the public think differently about play.

Mary: Scott, let me begin by asking how someone with training in intellectual history gets interested in play and toys.

Scott: Actually it’s an exceptionally good fit, Mary. Play is a state of mind as our friend Dr. Stuart Brown shows, and the way we play changes over time, and the things we play with change, over time. And so if you’re interested in play you’re naturally drawn into questions of psychology and history. Also, the institution I work for holds half-a-million objects (most of them toys and dolls) and installs big, original exhibits about play, two more good, practical reasons.

January 5, 2012

I'd like you to 'meet' an extraordinary person - Nick Metzler. He won the ChiTAG Young Inventor Challenge senior division for the second year in a row and received a licensing deal – his game is expected to be on the shelves this fall. He is one of the brightest, creative and most articulate people (young or old) I have ever met. He’ll be presenting at the TOTYs again with me as part of his prize package (the TIA is a very generous sponsor of the Young Inventor Challenge).

His interview with Gina Manola of Calico, one of the organizers of the Young Inventor Challenge, is a must read. It is difficult to believe Nick is only 17 when you read his interview. You will be seeing more of him in the future, whether it is in our industry or another, I just know it.

January 4, 2012

If you have been following our Changing the Way We Play series with the creatives at Kunoichi, we began with Brian Torney's article,Changing The Way We Play – Star Wars Collectables (1977), then Sam Well's article, He-Man and the Masters of the 30 Minute Toy Commercial, and now we continue with Anna van Slee. Anna was a speaker at T&GCon and SMAPCon and is Account Director at Kunoichi, where she guides the creative interactive strategy for high-profile clients in the toy and game industry. She facilitates the actualization of new and existing intellectual properties as animated series, interactive experiences, mobile and social campaigns, brand bibles, comic books, packaging art and custom transmedia solutions combining all of the above.

Anna: "Five thousand years ago on a Saturday night in Egypt, a 32-year-old grandma probably eased her aching, linen-toga-swaddled behind into a well-worn wooden chair to play a board game with her grandkids. Today, I might play the very same game, but wearing blue jeans and sipping ice-cold beers, after a hard day’s work spent sitting in front of a computer.

People have been playing board games since Homo sapiens have had time to think about anything beyond surviving from one moment to the next. Board games are one of the earliest expressions of culture, along with language and art. And it’s no wonder why: games teach players about strategy. And whether we live in adjacent mud-brick huts or skyscraper apartments, the key to a successful existence in society is advantageously balancing risk and reward.

Like all forms of play, board game play lets young minds begin to comprehend these facts of the adult world in a fun and safe environment. Games also let adults such as myself take out-of-character risks and experiment with new strategies – casting off stress in the process.

While these cathartic psychological foundations of board games have not changed, how humans process information and communicate with each other has changed quite a bit. In this article I’ll explore how social media has shaped human thought, and how those changes can be incorporated into board game mechanics to make the games themselves more relevant, intuitive and dynamic.

December 22, 2011

WGN Radio kindly had me as a guest the other day talking about why Santa comes to Chicago for his ideas (so many toy and game inventors here). Well, Cincinnati is another one of his favorite stops and Michelle Spellman did an amazing thing – she put together a catalog for the public of toys and games invented in Cincinnati – The Cincinnati Game & Toy Industry Professionals Holiday Gift Guide! Some of you know Michelle through a game she and her husband Jeff invented, Jukem Football, which is selling quite well in the stores and receiving a lot of media buzz. But Michelle is an incredible force of energy and sunk deeper into our industry, she put together a group of Cincinnati toy/game industry people that meet regularly and then the Gift Guide. I asked Michelle to tell us how it all came about and came together.

Michelle: The Cincinnati Game & Toy Industry Professionals is a networking group that lives primarily on Linkedin. It was started in June, 2010 and now has more than 200 members.

When I entered the toy and game industry four years ago, I wanted to connect with other people in the space to learn and find the resources I needed to get my company off the ground.

I discovered that there were a surprising number of toy industry veterans flying under the radar, doing all kinds of jobs in the Cincinnati region. As many of you know, Kenner Toys was here in Cincinnati for nearly 50 years, before being acquired and subsequently moving to Hasbro’s Rhode Island headquarters in 2000. When Hasbro left town, many people thought the toymakers left too. But as it turns out, they didn’t.

A large number of former (Kenner) Hasbro employees remained here. Many left the toy business and took positions in other industries. But many others continue to work as independent designers, inventors, consultants, agents, and provide other professional services to toy companies all over the world.

In addition, the University of Cincinnati’s Design Art and Architecture Program (DAAP) has a long history of producing accomplished toymakers who produce toys for numerous evergreen brands such as Star Wars, Nerf, Barbie, Hotwheels and many, many more.

Sam is another talented industry colleague and play expert. We worked with him on our Social Media at Play Conference this year. He spent seven years in comics publishing assuming many different roles ranging from editor to publisher to designer and occasionally writer. He’s the owner and main contributor to Toydejour.com, an off-beat toy review blog that has been giving unsolicited opinions and weird photos since 2007.

From Sam...

Every so often a product comes along and changes the way we play.

Take a look at any major selling toy line on the shelves today (Transformers, Power Rangers, My Little Pony, etc.) and you’ll see at only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to that brand. Resting just beneath the water is a massive structure of support for each toy line comprised of comics, video games, trading cards, websites and a slew of crazy miscellaneous licensed products. All are necessary to keep that brand above water, so to speak. But at the very base of this now hard-to-maintain iceberg metaphor you’ll find cartoons. The very soul of any branded toy line is the story told in animated series, and in recent years it’s become quite blurred whether the toys are a means to promote the shows, or if the shows are a means to promote the toys. But it hasn’t always been that hard to define.

December 2, 2011

Marbles, The Brain Store recently sent out and posted a video promoting one of their inventors, Peggy Brown, which is part of their innovative and very successful approach to retailing toys and games. The video is joy to watch (I admit I am biased as Peggy is a friend and she mentions the TAGIEs, but I think you will agree) - Marbles Peggy Brown Interview.

Promoting inventors aside, Marbles is a phenomenon in our industry. They opened its first store in October 2008 and has since opened five more stores in the Chicago area, three in Minnesota, and 9 more on the east coast (Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland). We filmed a commercial in their downtown Chicago store last fall on a weekday morning and it was busy… very busy. What is their secret? I caught up with Lindsay Gaskins, Marbles CEO, to find out what makes them roll.

Lindsay: “We have had a crazy year with more than doubling in store size and introducing 20 new Marbles branded products to our product line. Luckily we have a great, adaptable team and partners that are helping us grow rapidly and handle all the bumps in the road.

November 30, 2011

One of the TAGIE Awards is for young inventors with products that have made it to retail shelves and this year we had some very accomplished young inventor nominees. Kylie Copenhagen invented Zobmondo'sLadybug game when she was in first grade and it has been top selling pre-school game at Target for years. Jake, Erin and Lachlan Johnson, the inventors of FlipOutz, a hot new product sold by Wild Creations, were featured on Shark Tank and Daymond John invested in them. Last, but not least, Greyson MacLean, inventor of BrickStix, a removable label for bricks like Legos, that is being picked up by stores everywhere.

Our PR firm, Media Maison, worked to get these nominees and other TAGIE nominees and their products national exposure. Conan O’Brien invited Greyson as a guest on his November 12th show. You may have seen the clip as it circulated around the industry. Greyson was amazing. He not only held his own, stealing the show from LL Cool J, but bested Conan a few times. Definitely worth the watch. http://teamcoco.com/video/greyson-maclean-drops-truth.

I asked Greyson if he would share with us what it was like being on Conan, winning the TAGIE Young Inventor Award and working his BrickStix booth at ChiTAG. I am publishing his response unedited and in its entirety. Thank you to his mom, Amy, for the pictures.

Mrs. Couzin,

Here are the few paragraphs you asked me to do. Sorry it has taken so long. I have had a lot of homework this week.

October 18, 2011

We've been working with the Kunoichi team over the past year on social media, collateral and our Social Media at Play Conference (website and conference development). They aren't only innovative and insightful, but super knowledgeable about play – all types of play and play history. We thought it would be great to have a series on toys/innovations that changed our industry. Brian Torney weighs in first.

Brian is a writer, consultant, Jedi Knight and Vice President of Kunoichi, a leading transmedia services provider for entertainment brands. A 7-year veteran of the toy, game, publishing and children’s entertainment industries, Brian ideates new and existing brands, connecting storytelling across multiple new and traditional media. These are not the droids you’re looking for.

Brian: Every so often a product comes along and changes the way we play. In 1977, Star Wars made dolls a bad word.

October 11, 2011

Eric Zimmerman is a game designer, artist, academic, and writer who has been working in the game industry passionately for more than 16 years creating dozens of games of all kinds, from massively multiplayer online games to physical games designed for galleries and museums to card and board games. He has taught at schools like MIT, NYU, and Parsons School of Design. In addition, he's written about game design in books like Rules of Play, co-authored with Katie Salen, considered a standard textbook for game design. I met Eric some years back at a get-together I host during NYTF not knowing his amazing background at the time. It is his most recent work that I asked him to share with us - his recent collaboration with architect Nathalie Pozzi at the Museum of Modern Art. Reviews of this work include The Observer, The Paris Review and The New Yorker. He agreed to share his experience with us – thank you, Eric!

Eric: “I have been working as a game designer for almost 20 years – since I finished grad school – and I’ve always tried to find strange and interesting places within the game industry. For nine years I ran Gamelab, a company that created online games like Diner Dash before the term “casual games” existed. I’ve made MacArthur grant-funded games for kids, created dozens of real-world conference games played by hundreds or thousands of players, and this fall I have a game coming out for Xbox Kinect I designed with Deepak Chopra.

August 29, 2011

Toy and Game Inventors of the Year Nominations are open. Here are the top four reasons to vote for your favorite inventors:

1. Manufacturers can leverage inventor nomination with press releases, facebook posts and tweets that promote them/their products. Tell the story of your nominated inventors.2. Retailers can hold inventor autograph signings of nominated inventors – Drive traffic to your stores.3. Designers of a nominated inventor’s product can promote their contribution, helping drive sales.4. We have retained a national pr agency to promote the top nominated inventors nationally. This means your inventors, hence your products, will receive media coverage in time for the holidays.

We all know how important play is to our culture and to our development as human beings. Without the creators of the very games that drive this culture, where would we be? The creators of successful toys and games SHOULD be recognized for their contributions.

Consider this:Actors have Emmys and OscarsSingers have Grammies.Writers have Pulitzer, Edgar, Newberry, Hugo and moreChefs have their restaurants and a plethora of food shows, awards, books, columns, etc.

You have heard me say many times that inventors are no different from these other artists. The creative processes are similar and they can help us fight for the consumer’s entertainment dollar.

That’s exactly why we created the Toy & Game Inventor of the Year Awards (TAGIE Awards) – To recognize toy and game inventors from around the world responsible for some of today’s hottest products, as well as those inventor greats who have stood out in the eyes of their toy industry colleagues for their exceptionally innovative spirit of creativity or humanitarianism.

July 5, 2011

Sing-A-Ma-Jigs were a hot product last year and continue to be. It won three TOTYs at NYTF (Most Innovative, Top Preschool and overall Toy of the Year). Mattel acknowledged the inventor, Ron Magers of MDesign, in their acceptance speech. Innovation and a new brand can pay off big. I've known Ron for some years now and he always has a smile on his face, a kind word and is a classy guy. Like many in our industry, he also gives back to the community. He is currently involved in reshaping the 'Old Man' monument on a mountain top in NH. I asked Ron to share with us how Sing-A-Ma-Jigs came to be, a bit about his other inventions and why he is bringing the Old Man on the Mountain back to life.

Ron: Call it fun if you want but the toy business, unlike the success of the Duncan yoyo, has its up and downs and can often give a toy designer a bit of heartburn. We inventors know all too well that the time and effort that goes into the birth of an idea through to its conclusion and its promise of retail success, is fraught with the industry’s built in road bumps.

It always starts with the “this could be the one” idea. Then comes the excitement of the fantasy that your fledgling inspiration will soon be flooding the retail shelves across the land. As brief as these inspirational moments are, most creative types will tell you is that the endorphins generated from the first “Aha” instant is where the FUN is. It’s that initial spark that often motivates one to undertake the challenging part. The development of their brainchild and make it something real you can hold in your hands. Sure, there’s always the argument that selling the idea and making enough money to pay the bills and keep your next inspirations funded is what it’s truly all about. True and let’s face it. Without the financial rewards, inspiration is really only a little imaginative smoke.

June 27, 2011

What I like best about this column is the chance it gives me to write about extraordinary people. One person who, surprisingly, I have not covered to date is my friend Alan Hassenfeld. You may know his grandfather co-founded Hasbro and that Alan steered the company through some tumultuous times as CEO and Chairman. You can read about this part of Alan's life in Toy Wars, The Real Toy Story: Inside the Ruthless Battle for America's Youngest Consumers and other books about our industry, but what I find even more extraordinary has to do with his open heart and mind, how he is involved in so many causes and how he is helping so many people. He travels the world helping the helpless: street children in Brazil, the homeless in Pakistan, the sick and hungry in America... I don't have space to list all of his philanthropic endeavors. And yet, he always seems to have time to offer sage advice to people in the industry. People like me. He loves our industry and is a great spokesman for it. I think of Alan as a Statesman as well, because he doesn't just represent Hasbro. He goes beyond company lines.

Alan: There has been a strong focus on toy safety over the past few years -- and deservedly so. Much has been done by the toy industry and government to help ensure that the toys are safe.

But there is another kind of safety – one that is also very important and runs the risk of being lost in the shuffle – the health, safety and well-being of the people who make our toys. Hasbro, and I personally, have long worked hard to ensure that workers in toy factories have a healthy, safe and clean environment in which to work and are treated fairly in terms of working hours and wages.

June 17, 2011

I meet and work with many inventors, both professional and novice, and I love and admire them for many reasons. Chocolate is also something I love - all types and flavors. Both inventors and chocolates bring joy of varied play experiences or flavors, but you can't help but have a few favorites. Reuben Klamer is one of mine. He wrote an article for our ChiTAG Fair Program in 2009 that I recently rediscovered and so enjoyed reading, it occurred to me to share it in this column as it has wisdom as well as a piece of our industry history.

Inspiration and Perseverance are Essential for Success

Sir Winston Churchill once remarked, "Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm." That one sentence sums up my long career – sixty years and counting – pretty well. Believe me, succeeding is much more fun than failing. But either way I’ve always understood that to survive the constant rejection that is the hallmark of an inventor’s life you need two things: inspiration and a steadfast belief in your product. (Bonus points for having a sense of humor.)

My favorite illustration of perseverance? I was turned down an astonishing 21 times when I tried to sell my idea for what would become the classic Fisher-Price Preschool Trainer Skates – still on the market after 20 years and a worldwide hit. Twenty-one! It never occurred to me to abandon the skates and move on.

May 3, 2011

What Marvin Glass was in Chicago, Larry Jones was in California, but with better weather, a Porsche, cutoffs and a t-shirt. His offices were on the beach with girls in bikinis, picnic lunches, turtle races, crazy inventor presentations and much more. He and his partners formed California R&D Center on April Fool's Day in 1969 and Larry took over running it in 1972. They announced their entry into the toy business with a Playthings ad with them seated on toilets on the edge of the beach with the line “Getting Our Heads Together”. The company was always unusual and their by-line was “anything is possible”. I asked Larry if he would share one of his G-rated stories with us.

Larry: “There may be a few of you out there that remember how the toy invention business was a half a century ago … things were really different and I decided to open a toy invention company to sell ideas to toy companies. Take a minute to focus on what this business was like in the late 60’s. The Glass group was it … well maybe a handful of others including Eddie Goldfarb, but suffice it to say, the field was wide open and no one had experience selling concepts to toy companies and conversely, toy companies had no experience in buying outside ideas.

While there are a million stories, I do remember one that was as funny as it was entertaining. California R&D Center, my new company, had just opened its doors and I thought I would try to get Wham-O to see me, but I needed a way to get in to see Spud Melin, their President and not the submission secretary. I was convinced that a creative idea would set me up to be always welcome in the future.

April 11, 2011

During the London Toy Fair, I attended the brilliant UK Inventor's Dinner and sat next to the most intriguing person - Torquil Norman. He was engaging, entertaining, charming and a proper English gentleman (the latter until he told stories of past inventor dinners and running across table tops to elude the police and such).

You know Torquil is an interesting person when his Wikipedia entry starts out, "An Old Etonian, graduate of Harvard and Cambridge, he stands 6' 7". Torquil gained his pilot’s license at eighteen, did National Service in the Fleet Air Arm and when he left, bought a Piper Comanche, flew in No. 601 Squadron RAF and took up skydiving, a passion shared by his wife Anne.

After working as an investment banker in the United States for eleven years (years in USA during the war as a child, then a year at Harvard and five years at JP Morgan), he returned to the UK in the 1960s and subsequently entered the toymaking industry, first as chief executive of Berwick Timpo toy company from 1973, and then in 1980 founding Bluebird Toys, makers of the Big Yellow Teapot House, the Big Red Fun Bus, and the very successful Polly Pocket line of dolls."

There’s more. He was knighted, is a philanthropist, designed and built a barge on the Seine to escape, piloted a plane over the Atlantic and North Pole and still more. Click on the wiki link to read highlights. He recently wrote an autobiographical introduction to a book he is penning about lousy government, Kick the Tyres, Light the Fires. I asked if I might share a part of it. It was quite difficult to choose just one story from the 62 pages, but the idea of giving back to the world, in particular to children, resonated. I think you’ll enjoy reading it as much as I did.

March 20, 2011

There was a lot of chatter about bloggers at Toy Fair this year both by bloggers and by exhibitors. Some companies engaged bloggers productively and others were ambivalent or didn’t engage at all. I asked Mary Kay Russell, ChiTAG’s Director of Social Media, also an inventor - her most recently licensed game, The Ultimate Party Block debuted at NY Toy Fair, to give us feedback from bloggers who attended the Fair and ideas going forward.

Mary Kay: This year’s NY Toy Fair hosted bloggers, all excited to check out and blog about the newest and hottest toys and games to their loyal followers. I had a chance to speak with several, and here’s their feedback:

March 3, 2011

TIME magazine recently released its list of the All-TIME 100 Greatest Toys. They ranged from the Radio Flyer wagon of 1923 to the Zhu Zhu Pets of today. Interestingly, it was also their most read story that week on the web garnering over 6 million page views and nearly 14,000 ‘likes’ on facebook.

I am wondering why there were so few toys and games selected from the past 10 years. The 2000’s have only 3 products on the list, and the past twenty years account for only 12 of the hundred. The 70’s and 80’s account for 29 and the two decades before those, 40! (Well, actually 39 if you discount the fake vomit.)

February 9, 2011

China seems to be part of many conversations in our industry, but did you ever wonder how that came to be? Well, wonder no more. Toy Town: How a Hong Kong Industry Played a Global Gameby Sarah Monks, a new book commissioned by the Toy Manufacturers’ Association of Hong Kong tells the inside story of how tiny Hong Kong became the world's number one toy exporter then went on to establish southern China as the global toy industry's production base.

Angela Gardner, one of the many contributors to the book, learned the toy industry from her father, Frank, head of Plastic Manufacturing Corp (PMC). She was the first woman to sell on an international level and went on to found her own company, Castlespring Enterprises in Hong Kong.

I imagined Ms. Gardner had more than a few good stories and I asked her to share a few with our readers.

February 7, 2011

“A squirrel, a moose, and an owl walk into Toy Fair” was the subject line of an email I received recently. I just had to open it. The content was even more interesting than the subject line referring to terrific new games that will be shown by Educational Insights at NY Toy Fair. They promoted:

You may also bump into some of our inventors! Meet them, hear their stories, beat them at their own game, and walk away with a free signed copy.

As most of you know, a company promoting their inventors has my heart. I’ve worked with EI before as they participate in my ChiTAG and TAGIE events and even golfed at their company golf outing (dead last in a scramble – another story for another time!). I know they have promoted their inventors for some time now, but they have really stepped it up. They have pictures and bios, even full page, of their inventors in their catalogs! The pictures featured in this article are from their catalog.

I asked Amy Opheim, Director of Marketing, to tell us what they are up to.

February 5, 2011

Jim Hill wrote an entertaining story on how Don Rickles came to be the voice of Mr. Potato Head in Pixar’s Toy Story films (thank you, John Lasseter). The story is a clever tribute to the tens of millions of couch potatoes on Super Bowl Sunday. I think we should also include the Potato Head’s inventor, George Lerner, in such a tribute.

Peggy Brown authored the following story for the TAGIE Awards last November as George was honored In Memoriam. His partner Julius Ellman accepted the award on George’s behalf.

Before we came to know Mr. Potato Head as the world renowned celebrity he is today, we must explore his roots…. or the fact that he is so charmingly down-to-earth, he is practically a root himself. Once upon a time in 1949, Mr. Potato Head was born of the brilliant mind of George Lerner, an inventor from Brooklyn, New York. George and his friend, Julius Ellman, had merged their talents and their names to form a toy development company called Lernell.

January 17, 2011

Inventors or manufacturers will sometimes say to me that their products help children with special needs. I'll mention Lekotek or AblePlay and they are almost always unfamiliar with the organization. Hence, the topic of today's blog. Deidre Omahen, Director of Programs at the National Lekotek Center agreed to tell us about their role in our industry.

Deidre: “Inventors and manufacturers are absolutely right to suspect that many toys and games they created have applications for children with special needs. The challenge is to be able to shift ones perspective and see a toy’s potential for these children.

That’s actually the role of our website www.ableplay.org to match toys to children who have physical, sensory, communicative or cognitive limitations. When viewed through a lens focused on these special needs, you can actually sort of reinvent a toy by finding all kinds of new ways a child can use and play with it. And that’s really exciting!

December 17, 2010

I previously wrote about Gina Manola, founder of CALICO, Managing Partner of Playology, author/desinger of Notable Novelists and one of the driving forces of the Young Inventor Challenge at ChiTAG this year. The Young the Inventor Challenge encourages kids ages 6-18 to invent and present their original toy and game at the Fair. This year there were over 50 creative young inventors from around the country participating in the event.

Gina interviewed the two winners and I just had to share the highlights of her interview (full interview on her blog) with our Global Toy News readers. There are many articles about the downward trend of creativity and imagination in kids today (including some from me). These young inventors’ games were terrific – hopefully they will inspire other kids!

From Gina:

“This year two inventors took top honors. Adrik Herbert, age 8 of Morris, Indiana won in the Jr. Category for his game, Nutterz. “Nutterz is unique because the board is mostly slanted and I had the only slanted board in the Challenge,” Herbert goes on to say he was inspired to enter the competition because his father is a board game inventor. His advice for other kids thinking of entering “Take a deep breath and go with the flow—just do your best and show what you know.”

Nick Metzler, age 16 from Algonquin, IL was the winner in Sr. Category. His unique game play and board game format really caught the eye of the judges. That’s Cheating!

What’s the twist? You guessed it—you have to cheat to win. Metzler knew he had a unique concept for this year’s competition. “First, the game revolves on the concept that cheaters win which definitely changes the way people play games; Second, the game is made up of 5 individual rings to look kind of like a bulls-eye design, but they all spin which changes the board creating shortcuts.

The winners of the Young Inventor Challenge were introduced by actor, and inventor enthusiast, John Ratzenberger and Mike Hirtle, Head of Global Product Acquisition at Hasbro.

December 10, 2010

My apologies for not posting for a few weeks. My mother lost her battle with cancer just before my Chicago events (TAGIE Conference, TAGIE Awards and ChiTAG), and I took time off to work on her estate.

My mother loved to tinker – she made dollhouses, castles, barns and more as gifts for her kids and grandkids. She was great at fixing broken toys as well as at designing and making them from scratch. It was from her that I inherited my love for inventing and an appreciation for those who invent. Since the beginning of ChiTAG, my mom helped in so many ways and she would sit at a table with her sisters, Jo and Virg, checking in teachers and scouts all day long. Mom loved the idea of honoring inventors at the TAGIE Dinner and she encouraged me when the going was rough.

We missed her terribly this year.

Mine is not a unique story in our industry. This year at the TAGIE Awards we honored The Jim Henson Company for Excellence in Character Design, Ellen Hassenfeld Block and Alan Hassenfeld for their Humanitarian Works, and Eddy Goldfarb for his Lifetime Achievement in inventing. Julie Ellman accepted the In Memoriam award for his late partner, George Lerner, inventor of Mr. Potato Head. All have parents, children or both in the business and they all told family stories. Many of the other nominees came from toy inventing families as well – David Fuhrer (brother Robert and dad Len), Kate Daniels (mother Beth) and Ali Ryan (dad Steve).

Apart from the Mafia, there is no industry where family connections are more prevalent. I think the main reason is that we take our work home with us and involve our children in it. Ours are products that our kids want and we use their feedback. We pass our love of the business along to them. In her speech, Ellen told a wonderful story about how her brother Stephen and she found Mr. Potato Head parts in their father’s briefcase and after sticking them into a summer squash thought that THEY had invented Mr. Potato Head.

My son, Nick, has worn an Assistant Director badge at ChiTAG since he was 6 years old. He walks around the Fair shaking exhibitor’s hands and playing with their toys and games. This year, as a 14 year old, the highlight for him was meeting Miss Teen Illinois, but he still enjoyed talking with the exhibitors. Some of them tell me they mark the years by how much Nick has grown up.

Many of our industry colleagues are like family. So many of our efforts are collaborative and ours is a community that will step up to help and support you when you are in need. I don’t know how I would have gotten through this year without so much help from so many of you. Thank you.